Creepy, crawly, and hidden in your collection?

Recently SAC posted a couple of images of a moccasin that got some attention. Mainly because many were interested in what was found in the "out of sight" parts of this artifact. The moccasin (pictured below) was purchased ca. 1923 and was believed to be made by the Onondaga for trade purposes. Is is one of a pair that are made of semi-tanned leather and elaborately embellished with glass beads.

The beaded vamp of the moccasin before treatment.

The underside of the vamp before treatment. Here you can see that the wool layer (which should be between the leather and the vamp) is missing. The small dark regions are the moth casings. 

Traditionally, when a moccasin like this was being made, the glass beads were sewn to sandwiched pieces of paper and leather that would make up the decorative pieces of the vamp and cuff. These parts of a moccasin were typically embellished separately before being attached to the moccasin. To cover the backside of the stitching of the beads, a wool layer was commonly used to line these sections. In the case of this moccasin, the wool layer is missing, because it had been breakfast, lunch, and dinner for some hungry webbing clothes moths. Delicious!

These little, but incredibly voracious bugs have long departed from this moccasin, leaving behind the remnants of their stay: the casings in which they morphed from larvae to moth. Like most infestations, there is no simple way to know when this infestation occurred.  What is important now is that the infestation is inactive. However, as evidenced from the amount of casings found, these moths certainly were very happy when they were here.

The lifecycle of a moth.

You may wonder what it was about this location (i.e. under the vamp) that made the moths so content to stay. Webbing clothes moths (and other pests) prefer to be left alone and undisturbed. They also really like dark locations, and if the location is slightly damp and warm, it is even that much better! The fascinating part here is that webbing cloths moths also like to graze the surface of semi-tanned leather, but in this case there is no evidence of this type of damage. Therefore they were content with the wool alone.

From the exterior of this particular pair of moccasins, you would not be able to detect what was within the layers below the surface. However, being aware of the placement of the wool layer both under the vamp and cuff, and knowing that it provided a paradise location for pests, helps to understand safe storage/collection management for this particular artifact in the future.

So how do you prevent this type of damage from occurring with your artifacts? You need to practice IPM, otherwise known as Integrated Pest Management. The basic philosophy of IPM is to make your environment as inhospitable to pests as possible and to avoid the use of chemicals (read our recent post on moth balls). An inhospitable environment can be accomplished with these simple steps:

1. Inspect and "disturb" your artifacts regularly, particularly those that might be enjoyed most by pests.
2. Treat your vacuum as your best friend and use it often.
3. A cold and dry location is the best location to store your artifacts.

It is always best to avoid pest problems rather than reacting to infestation.  Remember the motto of IPM:       

"Prevention is better than cure"

If you want to know more about museum pest management check out this website: http://museumpests.net

And if you cannot help but find humor in museum pest management, you must see Historic Cherry Hill's youtube video to better understand the insect's point of view!

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Gwen Spicer is a textile conservator in private practice.  Spicer Art Conservation specializes in textile conservation, object conservation, and the conservation of works on paper.  Gwen's innovative treatment and mounting of flags and textiles is unrivaled.   To contact her, please visit her website.

A Ukrainian Boudoir Doll

by Nicolette Cook, SAC Conservation Technician

Recently, while working on a striking Ukrainian doll, it got me thinking about the function of dolls and why they hold such fascination for many of us. The doll was affectionately named "Katya" by the current owner's grandmother. Her grandmother lived near the cultural center of Lviv in western Ukraine and was given Katya in the 1890s. Katya's cloth body joins together her head, hands and high-heeled feet of composition, a material made mostly from the mixture of sawdust, glue and wood flour. She is still wearing her original hand-embroidered traditional costume and is adorned with a beaded floral and velvet headdress with embroidered silk ribbons flowing down her back.

Up-close of "Katya" before treatment.  The owner wanted the make-up substantially toned-down to be closer to the original that she remembered as a chi

However, according to her owner, the bold make-up she wore was not original, as she informed us the doll was restored in NYC in the 1960s. This was evident by the way the dark brown eyeshadow was inexpertly applied. Otherwise, she was in remarkable condition for an antique over 120 years old and only came to the studio to repair the garishly applied make-up as well as her detached foot.

Katya, after treatment.

Close-up of Katya, after treatment.

Children have played with dolls and doll-like toys for millennium. The first were simple, vague figures made of clay, wood, stone, bone, cloth and other natural materials, presumably for ritualistic purposes. In contrast today, dolls are made out of modern plastics and porcelain composites and are barely more than commercial novelty products of a materialistic world. 

Unlike our conception of dolls today, especially the "baby doll", the oldest dolls were "lady" dolls representing well-dressed women, such as Katya. Not unlike the notion of dolls today, "lady" dolls were not only play things but were also meant to prepare young girls for their later roles as wives and mothers. However, beginning in the early 20th century, doll-making strayed away from the conservative towards the risqué, with the growing popularity of the boudoir doll. Before the 1900's, dolls wore the latest costumes and followed the fashionable trends of European courts and represented the proper European woman. They were not toys, but instead were carried by fashionable women of the time. They were posed on sofas, chairs, beds and carried at balls, dances and other social events.

Antique Boudoir Doll, Wax Over Composition
Lady Doll, Circa 1860's

Yet the traditional style did continue into the early 20th century. Consider the boudoir doll we treated in 2011. This example of a lady doll, also dating to the early 1900's, shows a figure in a conservative silk gown, but her hair and make-up are distinctly modern with dark red lips and bright blue eyeshadow. Though from an later era than Katya, this doll was in worse shape when she came to us. Her composite face was flaking away and several holes were present in her silk garment. We consolidated and inpainted her face, filled in where her hair had thinned and mended the tears.

Boudoir Doll, Composite, silk and cotton,
early 20th C

Even though this conservative style survived into the new century, the modern woman, as well as her boudoir doll, was rapidly changing. The new contemporary aesthetic of shortening hairstyles and skirts, the freeing of the body from the constricting corset, as well as striking cosmetics, gave rise to the flapper and smoking dolls of the era. Their popularity grew as symbols of the provocative life of the 1920's when Prohibition was in full swing.

Flapper with her boudoir doll, circa 1920s

However while dolls in America were following the styles of the modern age, European dolls somewhat maintained their traditional roots. Like Katya, with her conservative dress and her bold make-up, the European doll did not reflect the temptations of modern society as daringly as their New World counterparts. Europe did not experience Prohibition, nor the economic boom that led to the excesses of the "Roaring Twenties." Europe was recovering after the Great War and the aesthetic followed the lines of art deco, which shared similarities to American 20s style. But Europe's dolls, in a limited sense, with their bold make-up, coquettish eyes and a provocative expression, also tested the boundaries of the ideal image of a proper lady. Despite their differences, modern boudoir dolls across the globe allowed even the everyday girl to vicariously live the lifestyle of a free modern woman.

Antique French Boudoir Doll, Composition,
silk, cloth, circa 1920s

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Gwen Spicer is a textile conservator in private practice.  Spicer Art Conservation specializes in textile conservation, object conservation, and the conservation of works on paper.  Gwen's innovative treatment and mounting of flags and textiles is unrivaled.   To contact her, please visit her website.

The conservation of textiles belonging to Caroline Parker, the Seneca woman known for her clothing.

by Gwen Spicer

Caroline Parker, was a Tonawanda Seneca and older sister to Levi Parker. They were both friends with Lewis Henry Morgan, a pioneering ethnographer and lawyer from Rochester, New York.  It was Morgan who, with the assistance of the Parker family, amassed collections in the mid-nineteenth century of Iroquois artifacts that are now housed at the New York State Museum in Albany, New York; National Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark; and the Rochester Museum & Science Center in Rochester, New York.

Caroline Parker, ca. 1840. Daguerreotype

Caroline Parker wearing articles of traditional
Seneca clothing that were sent by Morgan
to the NYSM in 1851. Colored lithograph

Caroline Parker is unusual in the fact that up to recently, she was only known for the clothes that she was pictured wearing and that she had possibly been the creator of these clothes.  Morgan's two published reports on the collections made for the New York State Regents and his subsequent League of the Ho-De-No-Sau-Nee or Iroquois included colored lithographs of Caroline and her brother, Levi, dressed in clothing, and of the individual articles of dress, now in the collections of the New York State Museum.  The full standing figure image is often used in publications or illustrations in exhibitions of a "typical Iroquois woman".  It is fascinating how the clothing has personified not only her, but all Iroquois.  Her image, as well as that of her brother, have become the ideal or stereotype of the well dressed Iroquois.

In 1849, Morgan acquired complete Seneca woman's and man's ceremonial costumes of the day, including this skirt (see above image).  In the daguerreotype, Caroline Parker is shown wearing the woman's costume, consisting of beaded moccasins, leggings, skirt, overdress, blanket, and handbag.  Most, if not all, of which she herself had made.

A note on the images, first between the daguerreotype and the lithograph, the artist did make a few changes.  But also when daguerreotypes are created, the image that they produce is a mirror image of the subject.  The most notable element is the beaded flower on the skirt.  The lithograph, as well as the photograph (both are featured in the images below) of the skirt show it as the object actually exists. 

The images below are the plates from Lewis Henry Morgan's Third Regents Report, Chapter 8.  The clothing articles are the items that Caroline Parker is wearing in the above images. 

Pl. 6  Over-dress, front

Pl. 6a  Over-dress, back

Pl. 5  Skirt

Pl. 4  Female leggings

Pl. 2  Moccason, for female (spelling in the report)

Pl. 11  Work bag

What wonderful luck to have these images of the individual artifacts, and how the assemblage would have been worn. A true treasure. This is especially the case as the the vast majority of the artifacts were destroyed by the devastating 1911 fire of the New York State Capital, where all of the collections were on exhibition.  Below are the clothing articles that survived, which consists of only the overdress and skirt.  Thanks to an IMLS grant in 1998, these and other fragile textiles from the collection were stabilized and rehoused for study.

Red overdress, NYSM

Beaded skirt, NYSM

The surviving overdress and skirt are considered to have been made by Caroline herself.  Her mother, Elizabeth Parker was also known as a needlewoman, so it might be that she also had a part in their construction.  However, the RMSC has two beaded textiles, an overdress and table cover, that are attributed solely to Caroline.

Even in the mid-nineteenth century, Iroquois had made adaptions and were influenced by their surroundings. One case in point is the style and cut of the overdress. It has many similarities to the cut of garments worn by the larger New York community during the 1840s. The exception being the beadwork, in particular, which distinguishes it as Native American. (A non-Indian woman, for instance, would have worn lace-trimmed pantalettes instead of bead-trimmed leggings.) 

Now, thanks to Deborah Holler, a historian, Caroline Parker's biography has come to light. We now know the important roll that she played with her family, clan, and larger community.  It was a time of change and turmoil for the Tonawanda Seneca.  Land was sold, new means and ways of living where needed to be found.  With her knowledge of English, promoted by Morgan himself, she acted as translator for her community during the later half of the nineteenth century.  Her education, as a female at the time, was extraordinary.  She attended Baptist Missionary School at Pembroke, later the Cayuga Academy in Auburn, and lastly the State Normal School in Albany, New York.

The New York State Museum has on their website all of their collections: http://collections.nysm.nysed.gov/morgan/. To read more about the skirt www.nysm.nysed.gov/womenshistory/skirt.html.

Rochester Museum & Science Center also has some of their collection online at: http://www3.rmsc.org/museum/exhibits/online/lhm/LHMmain.htm

Many thanks to George Hammell and his assistance with this post.
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Gwen Spicer is a textile conservator in private practice.  Spicer Art Conservation specializes in textile conservation, object conservation, and the conservation of works on paper.  Gwen's innovative treatment and mounting of flags and textiles is unrivaled.   To contact her, please visit her website.